Our three history topics Were

The Freedom Riders, The Montgomery Bus Boycott, and Stokely Charmichael.


The Freedom Riders
The Freedom Riders were a group of civil rights activists that held protests against segregation, and mistreatment of African Americans.

The first freedom ride to ever occur happened on May 4th, 1961. It all started when 6 blacks and 7 whites decided to take 2 public transportation buses down into the south to basically try and gain the rights of Blacks and the rights of Whites to be equal when on public transportation. Some of the things they did were go into all white areas like restaurants and they would sit and order (if even given the chance) or they would get kicked out before this could even happen. Throughout their journey they were attacked, beaten, and they even had one of their buses lit on fire. When they reaches Anniston on may 14th the Freedom Riders were attacked by men with clubs, bricks and knives. one of the busses was lit on fire and the mob of people tried to hold the doors shut so that the riders would be burned to death. Police came and cleared the area, but the mob of people followed the busses in their cars smashing open windows with bars, and denting the sides of the busses. No one died, but people were sent injured to the hospital. Luckily, all of this brought the freedom riders tons of attention and publicity which in the long run helped them to attain many more freedom riders too.




Stokely Charmichael
Stokely Charmichael was a black, civil rights activist. He attended Howard University He was the Chairman of the SNCC. He was also affiliated with The Black Nationalists party, and the Black Panthers. In college, Charmichael participated in the Freedom Rides. He was detained for 53 days for entering a white-only cafeteria. Carmichael also helped to raise the number of registered black voters from 70, to 2,600.




The Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott started December 1, 1955. From that day on, all the blacks in Montgomery County, Alabama would boycott all forms of public transportation, in response to the segregation, and mistreatment of blacks on the bus system.Blacks were not allowed to sit in the front of the bus, they had to go the back when the whites boarded.The movement is remembered to have started when seamstress and NAACP worker Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus and refused to give up her seat in 1955. She was arrested and jailed. She was arrested and jailed again on December 1, 1955 when she a couple blacks ilegally sat together in a row while a white man stood, being asked to move, all blacks moved with the exception of her.
E.D Nixon heard about this instantly went to jail and bonded her. They started the protest by handing out information to blacks as to why they should protest the bus. Many historical figures such as Martin Luther King jr. and and Ralph Abernathy joined. The city wide protest against racial segregation in public transportation. The case was tooken to court and the segration of bus seats based on race was deemed unconstitutional. The law was lifted also because of the loss of money to the system.





Resources




__http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_riders__
__http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/montbus.html__
__http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokely_Carmichael__
__More on Stokely Carmichael__